Navigating institutional logics and mediums of social control: the embodied visibility of women experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness in public spaces

Heather Williams

Chapter 3 in Homelessness in Affluent Societies, 2026, pp 47-63 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Multiple Exclusion Homelessness (MEH) women assert their presence in public spaces, increasing visibility and challenging criminal justice institutions that can criminalise them through legislation unrelated to homelessness. Representing a small, highly marginalised element of the UK's homeless population, MEH women face multiple, complex needs and often engage in street-based survival activities such as begging, drinking, shoplifting, and sex work. Homelessness is a gendered experience, and these women both claim and resist urban spaces, navigating cultural transgressions and the enforcement of spatial and social order. Political discourses shape the management of homelessness through control of public behaviours, often overlooking how enforcement powers can be used against marginalised groups. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic research, this chapter examines MEH women's agency and interactions with criminal justice representatives under the UK Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018, revealing how institutional logics discipline and criminalise them, shaping their visibility and marginalisation.

Keywords: Multiple Exclusion Homelessness; Women; Ethnography; In(visibility); Social Marginalisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035357260
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